Scottish Sinfonia

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About Scottish Sinfonia

Sinfonia was founded in 1970 by Neil Mantle and has to date performed nearly two hundred concerts. It has a basic playing strength of ninety, augmented or diminished as required.

The orchestra is a highly successful mixture of professional players, instrumental teachers and amateurs with an age range of seventeen to seventy all united in one common aim; to make music to the highest standard of which they are capable.

Although the orchestra has a wide range of repertoire, it has become especially noted for its Mahler performances which have for many years been a central feature of Fringe Music at the Edinburgh Festival. These concerts always attract acclaim from both audiences and critics alike. In fact overall, the 1998-99 concerts played to a 92% capacity.

This further proves the immense appeal and popularity of the Scottish Sinfonia especially during the decade of the 1990's when concert tickets were eagerly snapped up by people who were eager to watch the orchestra's much talked about Mahler performances during the Edinburgh Festival. Critics and fans alike of the orchestra thoroughly enjoyed their respective performances of Fringe Music that they have become a regular fixture at the annual festival. Sinfonia has certainly come a long way and achieved a lot since its founding in 1970 but its aim of making music of the highest possible standards still remains unchanged.

In the course of its forty year history there have been many highlights, but Sinfonia is especially proud to be able to claim the first performance in Scotland - nearly seventy years after its composition - of Strauss's mighty Alpine Symphony. More recently, they were the first non-professional orchestra to programme the "new" Elgar/Payne Third Symphony. (They were beaten to the Scottish premiere by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra by just a few weeks!).

The orchestra's complete Mahler series has now been released on Compact Disc. The success of these live recordings does much to spread Sinfonia's name beyond the U.K.

From 1994 to 2010 the historic Greyfriars Kirk, with its splendid acoustics, was the orchestra's home. In 2011, the orchestra moved to St Cuthbert's in Lothian Road.

In June 2008, conductor Neil Mantle was awarded the honour of MBE for services to Music in Scotland.